Jacob Reader

Ring
Psychology
25 September 2015
Dreams Research Paper

Dreams are a commonly discussed topic all around the world. We all dream, all about different
things. Its a question that cant really be answered. Why do we dream? What do dreams mean?
These types of questions will be attempted to be answered throughout this essay.

Lets discuss what sleep really is. There are four stages of the sleep cycle. Stage one is
light sleep. During the first stage of sleep, we're half awake and half asleep. Our muscle activity
slows down and slight twitching may occur. This is a period of light sleep, meaning we can be
awakened easily at this stage. Have you ever had a feeling of falling when you were trying to
sleep and then suddenly woke up? That will occur during this stage of sleep. Stage two is true
sleep. Within ten minutes of light sleep, we enter stage two which lasts around 20 minutes. The
breathing pattern and heart rate start to slow down. This period accounts for the largest part of
human sleep. Stages three and four is deep sleep. During stage three, the brain begins to produce
delta waves, a type of wave that is large (high amplitude) and slow (low frequency). Breathing
and heart rate are at their lowest levels as well. Stage four is defined by rhythmic breathing and
limited muscle activity. If we are awakened during deep sleep we do not adjust immediately and
often feel groggy or half awake for several minutes after waking up. Some children experience
bed-wetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during this stage. Rapid eye movement is also
happening mostly in stage four.

There are a significant amount of dreams that a person may experience. There are dreams
such as daydreams, recurring dreams, nightmares, lucid dreams, signal dreams, and epic dreams.
Here are all the defined terms of these different types of dreams: Daydreaming is defined as a
level of consciousness between sleep and being awake. Studies show that you have the tendency
to daydream an average of 70-120 minutes a day. It occurs during waking hours when you let
your imagination carry you away, and during the process you start to lose awareness and
attention. Recurring dreams repeat themselves with little explanation in the story or theme.
These dreams may be positive, but they are often nightmarish in content. Dreams may recur
because a conflict depicted in the dream remains unresolved or ignored. Perhaps these types of
dreams have a deeper connection with your minds thoughts and concerns. People have had a
tragic event(s) happened some time in their life, and that situation would reappear in their
dreams. Nightmares are a disturbing dream that causes you to wake up feeling anxious and
terrified. Studies suggest nightmares may be a response to real life trauma or situation that has
been dwelling on a person. Nightmares arent always based on life events, they can be random
but still frightening. Lucid dreams occur when you realize that you are dreaming. Most dreamers
wake themselves up once they realize that they are dreaming. But some people are able to
control and alter the events that occur in the dream. Signal dreams help you to solve problems or
make decisions in your waking life. For instance, some people might be struggling with an idea
for a topic for their research paper. They could have a dream to influence an idea and to make
their assignment better. Epic dreams are so huge, so extreme, and so vivid that you cannot ignore
them. The details of such dreams remain with you for years, as if you just dreamt it last night.
Some people claim that their dreams are so real that they mix up real life events with their dream
events.

The real question is, what exactly are dreams? Dreams have been a wonder to the world
for centuries. Dreams are the involuntary viewing up of sounds, images, ideas and feelings as
well as other sensations during sleep. Where do they come from? Although dreams cant be
explained, they can be examined. When scientists do brain scans on subjects during REM sleep,
they find that the visual center of the brain, the area that processes all the new information people
come across while awake, is shut down. Interestingly, the visual memory center, though (the part
of the brain that stores images and events from the past, like what your first car looked like), is in
overdrive. In other words, the memory section of our brains feed through our subconscious
during the events of dreaming. Scientists believe our memory of certain things coincide with our
dreams. However, there are some dreams that you may have that you dont recognize. The
average human forgets up to 1,000 things in one day. That statistic consists of small things, or
irrelevant things. Big and significant events of course, youll remember. All of those small pieces
of memory and information are stored inside our brain. Even though we dont have access to
those pieces of memory, they can be let out during our dreams, some scientists believe. Dreams
are described as random pieces of a puzzle being put together, and those puzzle pieces are
symbolized as pieces of our memory, information, and experiences.
The next question is, why do we dream? Some scientists believe dreams help us interpret
the world around us. If you have a big game coming up, or some type of important event, your
dreams might try to help you get a better understanding of what is happening. What you might
worry about while you are in your waking state, can alter your dream experience. Some people
claim their dreams have assisted them in achieving goals in their life, or at least helped them deal
with whatever was happening. A well amount of people believe dreams are very spiritual,
meaning they have a deep connection between yourself and an out of body source. Those

spiritual dreams are believed to contain messages of some of some kind, but who knows what
they could possibly mean. But unfortunately, there is no answer for why we dream.
In conclusion, dreams are a popular topic for scientists and researchers. Dreams occur
during sleep, and sleep is a big part of our everyday lives. We spend of our life sleeping.
Imagine how many dreams you would have in a lifetime! There are a decent amount of different
dreams that people experience. Such as epic dreams, nightmares, daydreams, lucid dreams,
signal dreams, recurring dreams, and more. Research and theories have been conducted over the
years about dreams, and what they are. Theories and research point to the part of the brain that
process information and memory, saying it plays a big role in dreams. Some people believe
dreams are strictly spiritual. People may ask, why do we dream? The answer to that can be found
somewhere we are not capable of finding. People find dreams emotional, frightening, enjoying,
confusing, complicated, or strange. Somewhere along the line we have to accept that dreams
exist, and we cant prevent them from happening. Experiments and research can find further
more about them, which is an advantage. Could it be in some ways a disadvantage? Will we find
out more about them? Considerable, yet interesting questions that we may or may not find out.

(Brues J. Michael. Decoding the Science Behind Dream Interpretation and the Lucid Dream
Huffington Post. HuffingtonPostInc. Dec 8, 2012. September 19, 2015)

(Obringer A. Lee, How Dreams Work HowStuffWorks, 2015, September 19)

(Popova, Maria. The Science of Dreams, and Why We Have Nightmares. The Brain
Pickings.com, 2015)

(Breecher M. Maury, Maurice DM. An ophthalmological explanation of REM sleep. Exp Eye
Res 66. The Biology of Dreaming. Columbia.edu. 2015)
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